The Sirius/XM merger will have no impact to WxWorx services, the XM WX Satellite Weather provider said yesterday. WxWorx (Booth No. 962) offers the XM WX service in conjunction with XM Satellite Radio, now called Sirius XM. The two satellite radio companies merged in July.

“The merger has been approved, but we’re moving ahead with updates and improvements,” a WxWorx spokeswoman told NBAA Convention News. She stressed that the merger will not make the necessary hardware obsolete, “The hardware will continue to work and will be fine. Nothing changes.”

Any changes or adjustments to avionics will be made by WxWorx partners, such as Honeywell, Garmin, Rockwell Collins and Avidyne, the spokeswoman said.
In moving forward with its updates and improvements, the company relaunched several new products here at NBAA’08. The company originally announced the new products at EAA AirVenture in July.

The company’s Aviator package, which retails for $49.99 per month, now includes aireps, pireps and Storm Prediction Center (SPC) Aviation Weather Watches. The SPC product is issued by the National Weather Service and alerts users of areas where severe thunderstorms or tornadoes are likely to develop. The package also includes Nexrad weather, satellite mosaic, severe weather storm tracks, lightning and winds aloft. “The package price hasn’t changed,” the spokeswoman said. “It’s just a better value.”

WxWorx also launched a new service, Aviator Pro, which costs $99.99 per month and includes a turbulence product, SPC convective outlook and mesoscale discussion, supercooled liquid droplet conditions, current icing product and hurricane tracks.
Nearly 90 percent of all new GA aircraft are delivered with factory-installed XM WX systems, the company said. In addition to availability on cockpit avionics displays, the service is also available on electronic flight bag computers and PCs.